Every November for the past 8 years, I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. It’s the beginning of November 2016, and today I’ll embark on the first day of my ninth NaNoWriMo project.

NaNo is a 30-day challenge to write 50,000 words, which for a lot of participants is quite a feat, but its real purpose is to bring together writers of every age and type.

Although I’ve participated in NaNo for the past 8 years, I’ve only “won” once — which is to say I’ve only hit word count once out of 8 years.

For me, NaNoWriMo has never been about winning, which really just means completing 50,000 words. It’s always been about participating in the larger writing community, going to write-ins, and learning from the writers I know online and in my region.

This year, my NaNoWriMo experience is going to be really different from previous years. My goal will be completing a rough second draft of a novel I’m working on with my writing partner, Emily, that we’ve been working on together since 2014. Since we’re splitting the workload, we’re each only writing for a goal of 25,000 words — which is great, because we both work full-time and have other responsibilities.

Check out what’s in store below.

Summary

On transferring to an all-girls academy, Dani hopes to make a fresh start — except she’s not doing such a great job. Jaded by her recent military school expulsion, she gets into an altercation with the student council president, Lily, whose disdain leaks from her eyeballs.

After a chance encounter with Cara, the most popular girl at St. Talia’s, the girls enter a time freeze, only to be attacked by a grotesque and mysterious monster. To their surprise, they’re saved by what can only be described as a “magical girl” who looks like she came straight out of an anime: bright violet hair, a fluffy skirt, and a pair of shiny magical swords. What’s more, she looks suspiciously like Dani’s disdain-leaking seat neighbor.

Soon, Dani and Cara are recruited by a mysterious organization, the Night Corps, which fights the grotesque monsters and their commanders, a group known as the Night Coven. After gaining a new power to help fight the monsters, Dani and Cara join with a veteran to form a three-person team – coming face to face with a terrifyingly angry Lily. She prevents the two from engaging in combat until, caught unaware, Dani and Cara are caught in the crossfire of a Night Coven attack.

Game Plan

This year, I have a more settled plan for NaNo than usual, mainly because of the time I need to coordinate with my writing partner. I’ll be doing short blog updates a few days this month:

• November 7
• November 15
• November 21
• The End!

I’m headed to Rathalla Review‘s annual Write-A-Thon on November 5. Full disclosure: the Write-A-Thon is held in the library of Rosemont College, where I completed grad school, and I was previously Rathalla’s production manager. I expect this to cause a huge addition to our word count for the November 7 update!

Once again, I’ll have guest posts about NaNo on my blog. You’ll also find me on other blogs talking about NaNo, so keep an eye out!

There’s a calendar tracker in my sidebar for you to see what days we’ve written and whether we’re still on track. I will NOT be updating my normal NaNo account this year! If you want to keep up with us on the NaNo site, you can find us here.